THESIS PROPOSAL GUIDELINES

Pharmacology graduate students are required to prepare a written Thesis Research Proposal describing the scope and aims of your thesis project. This necessitates that you put careful thought into your research and develop in writing the hypotheses you are testing and the detailed proposed approaches to investigate them. The Steering Committee will review your status after the semester of your proposal defense to determine whether you should be advanced to candidacy for the PhD. The Committee will consider your record in course work, evaluations from faculty mentors and the reports from your Qualifying Exam and Thesis Proposal defense when taking this decision.

 The defense of your proposal should take place within the Fall  term of your third year (second year for MSTPs). By setting up an early defense, we hope to help you meet our program’s goal for students to finish in 4 - 5 years.

 Unlike for the Qualifying exam, you are responsible for selecting your own committee for the Thesis Proposal Defense. Your committee should consist of three faculty. One faculty member at least must be part of the Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology Graduate program

(https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/mcp/faculty/index.php#Alphabetical)

and one must be an external member (i.e., not listed in the faculty page linked above, but could be a faculty member at Stony Brook). The third member can be internal or external. Only an internal member can serve as committee Chair. (The composition of this committee can change over time and does not need to be identical to your final thesis defense committee.)

 Your thesis advisor should help you with preparation of the proposal, but should not participate in the proposal defense. At the end of the meeting, the advisor can be invited to discuss with the committee members the evaluation of your defense. Your advisor, together with the three other committee members, will become your research advisory committee for all subsequent committee meetings.  Please submit an email to the Graduate Program office before the beggining of the semester in which you will defend your proposal with the names of your committee members.

 It is expected that a full thesis project will be sufficiently ambitious to encompass at least one (or more) publication(s) in leading journals.  The proposal should represent your best current view of the goals of your project. However, as results are obtained, the focus of your project may evolve. During the course of research, you may find that some of your original aims were unrealistic, or you may uncover a new, more interesting line of experimentation.

 As you write your Thesis Proposal please observe a limitation of 8 single-spaced pages incorporating the following sections:

 1)         Summary (including a clearly defined hypothesis)                      1 page

2)         Specific Aims                                                                                                          1 page

3)         Research Strategy                                                                                              6 pages

4)         Bibliography (no page limits)

 

You should aim to craft a proposal that could then be submitted to the NIH as a fellowship (NRSA) application, if possible. The guidelines from NIH for the written document are listed below:

Project Summary/Abstract (one page.)

The Project Summary must contain a summary of the proposed activity suitable for dissemination to the public. It should be a self-contained description of the project and should contain a statement of objectives and methods to be employed. It should be informative to other persons working in the same or related fields and insofar as possible understandable to a scientifically or technically literate lay reader.

 Specific Aims are limited to one page.

State concisely the goals of the proposed research and summarize the expected outcome(s), including the impact that the results of the proposed research will exert on the research field(s) involved.

List succinctly the specific objectives of the research proposed, e.g., to test a stated hypothesis, create a novel design, solve a specific problem, challenge an existing paradigm or clinical practice, address a critical barrier to progress in the field, or develop new technology.

Research Strategy is limited to six pages.

Organize the Research Strategy in the specified order using the instructions provided below. Start each section with the appropriate section heading — Significance, Innovation, Approach. Cite published experimental details in the Research Strategy section and provide the full reference later in the Bibliography and References Cited section (Bibliography does not count towards the page limit).

 (a) Significance

• Explain the importance of the problem or critical barrier to progress in the field that the proposed project addresses.
• Explain how the proposed project will improve scientific knowledge, technical capability, and/or clinical practice in one or more broad fields.
• Describe how the concepts, methods, technologies, treatments, services, or preventative interventions that drive this field will be changed if the proposed aims are achieved.

(b) Approach

• Describe the overall strategy, methodology, and analyses to be used to accomplish the specific aims of the project. Include how the data will be collected, analyzed, and interpreted.

-Discuss potential problems, alternative strategies, and benchmarks for success anticipated to achieve the aims.

- If the project is in the early stages of development, describe any strategy to establish feasibility, and address the management of any high risk aspects of the proposed work.

- Point out any procedures, situations, or materials that may be hazardous to personnel and precautions to be exercised.

If an applicant has multiple Specific Aims, then the applicant may address Significance, Innovation and Approach for each Specific Aim individually, or may address Significance, Innovation and Approach for all of the Specific Aims collectively.

Preliminary Studies.

Please include information on preliminary studies, if any. Discuss the preliminary studies, data and/or experience pertinent to this proposal.

When applicable, provide a succinct account of published and unpublished results, indicating progress toward their achievement.

Bibliography & References Cited

Provide a bibliography of all references cited. Each reference must include the names of all authors (in the same sequence in which they appear in the publication), the article and journal title, book title, volume number, page numbers, and year of publication. Include only bibliographic citations.

You should be able to complete this proposal and present it in print (and/or electronically) to your Research Advisory Committee at least one week before your defense. The proposal defense is a closed event, but it can be preceded by a public seminar where you outline your plans and/or discuss your preliminary results. Since you and your classmates will be scheduled to present your first departmental/program seminar this Fall, one option is to schedule the oral defense following your seminar. Alternatively you can select any other time during the Fall semester. If for any reason you feel that you cannot meet this deadline, please contact the program director. Remember that you do not need to have extensive preliminary results for this proposal.